BEGINNING IN THE MIDDLE:
A SECOND PRACTICE GROUNDING

Second practice falls out of me like an intestine when a lower stomach is slit.
A gravitational force of something that is sitting coiled behind a future rupture.
It feels like it is waiting for me. That the work of uncovering it had already been done.

One day... I just very clearly notice and want to acknowledge that a second environment of doing exists alongside and outside dominant practices and conventions of my chosen disciplinary and industry framework. Alongside and outside the cycle of design.

I happen to capture the first moment I say second practice on my phone.

Voice Recording

19.07.2022

​

For those of us who do have that kind of... cultivated parallel practice that supports and aids us in those times... um... within industry and are unable to use those... aids and supports to therefore be part of our industry work... we really have second practice. We have two practices. When we most... so most of all need to be integrating instead of doubling up.
What initially saves me... allows me to grow... allows me to have these tiny kind of... moments where I can still work really well. Thoroughly and kind of... um... emerge or transcend my praxis is
is hidden but is
is second and parallel to something else which is just exhausting.

I put down my phone and begin creating quick diagrams to help me think through and follow and explore the thought. 

This is the cycle of design.
It is a cyclical creation method and production paradigm in design education and professional practice.
The production cycle is made up of sequential silos of "process".
I look at the design cycle and these silos as a topography or environment.
An environment for production and efficiency.

An environment of industrialised time and movement.

I look at it and think of how we move through these cyclical processes to create artefacts.

One of the main global artefacts of this design process is mental, emotional and physical exhaustion.

In the nineteen years I have been in institutions and industries that centre this cycle... it has been increasingly growing towards neoliberal industry needs and not human realities of creativity. We are taught and trained with this process. We practice this process. We practice through this process. Our practice develops with this process.

These siloed pit stops are not my realities of creativity.

Not my everyday creativity.

Not my rhythms of creativity.
My everyday experiences exist in whole other spaces. In a whole other environment. 
A supplementary area of practice.

And here exists the practices we don't talk about, celebrate, let in or systemically can't recognise.
Practices that are othered.
Practices that shadow existing commercial practice to support and aid the systemic deficiencies of the expected practice.
That come from unique and individual needs.
That are informed by diverse lived experiences. 
That are informed by complex and creative bodymind expressions, receptions and perceptions of the world.
That cannot be folded down into commercial shapes or performance in a workplace environment.
Practices that are messy and inclusive of all human everyday experiences.
That swell outside of silos.
That are unseen, discreet, private, intangible.
That are hidden and shamed.
That come with stigma.
Practices that we have no name or shape for.
That are not outcome driven.
That are not about efficiency or productivity.
Practices that are happening out of place and out of pace.

I call these practices: second practices.
Second to "primary" dominant practice; the background, underneath and invisible.
Second as additional to primary practice; a double life of creative labour. 
Second practices may be brought in with the practitioner.
Second practices may be exacerbated or caused by the primary framework for practice.

My second practices... the ones that have slowly surfaced over the past four years... are relational and interdependent with my chronic illnesses and disabilities. There are so many people living with disability that move, do, create in ways that exist outside the acceptable ways, modalities and directions of doing and making of the cycle of design. Practices that are ways of coping and existing that are systemically rendered invisible and expected to stay that way and so fall as the responsibility of the practitioner.

These other and othered ways are implicitly excluded.
Our practices are excluded.

They are not productive enough.

Commercial enough.

They are not part of the environment.

They are not part of the culture.

They are not neat circles of clearly delineated phases.
But they are here.

The following sharing is how I found mine.